新技术：Rocket Lab 成功试验直升机回收一级火箭

 

 

This is what it looked like from the front seats. pic.twitter.com/AwZfuWjwQD

— Peter Beck (@Peter_J_Beck) May 3, 2022

 

While we await ideal weather conditions for #ThereAndBackAgain, the recovery team has been conducting capture tests using a stage 1 mass simulator. Our pilots make this look easy! ???????????? pic.twitter.com/1r6PZvzBni

— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) April 26, 2022

 

In a significant achievement, public launch provider Rocket Lab has – with a few caveats – successfully used a helicopter to catch the booster of its Electron rocket out of mid-air on the very first attempt.

The company began working on ways to recover and reuse the booster of its tiny Electron rocket in 2019, going back on a promise repeatedly made by founder and CEO Peter Beck in the years prior. Due to just how small the Electron rocket is, it was generally assumed that Beck wasn’t wrong to avoid attempting to recover or reuse its parts of it. However, that attitude quickly changed when the need to ramp up launch cadence became a leading priority. Soon after, Beck revealed that Rocket Lab engineers had looked more carefully at the problem and concluded that Electron booster recovery was more feasible than assumed.

https://www.teslarati.com/rocket-lab-helicopter-catches-rocket-booster-first-try/